Reading a book that consists of the unedited manuscript of a WPA guide called America Eats, an in-depth description of the varied cuisines of the country as they existed in the 1930s. The Food of a Younger Land: The Northeast Eats is fascinating, ranging as it does from a discussion of a “C.O. Cocktail” — castor oil in soda served at a drug store, to a description of Vermont, where maple sugaring is so much a part of peoples’ lives that “sugaring off” became an expression. A person might close some transaction by saying, “Well, Ed, it’s about time we sugar that off.”